The Lead Mosque will be ready to receive the Muslim worshipers by the autumn of this year after undergoing its complete restoration.

The lead mosque in Shkodër has been assessed as one of the 50 most beautiful monuments in the world, while the progress of its reconstruction work has been made public by Prime Minister Edi Rama.

“By the fall of this year, the Lead Mosque will be ready for believers and visitors. The works are moving at a fast pace to return this special cult object to its rightful place, considered as one of the 50 most beautiful monuments in the world”, writes Rama on Facebook.

The Lead Mosque is the largest mosque preserved in Albania of the Ottoman style, with the combination of other architectures. The mosque was built by Mehmet Pashë Bushati in 1773-1774, serving for a long time as the largest mosque in the country. In 1948, the Lead Mosque was declared a cultural monument, having the status of state protection.

In 1967, when religion was officially banned in Albania, the mosque suffered damages, especially with the destruction of the minaret, while in different periods it was not officially used for the performance of rites. It remains a symbolic mosque in Albania, as it reopened its doors to Muslim believers on November 16, 1990 after the country’s long-standing ban on religion during the communist era.

/k.s/